


Day Three: From Shadow...

by BlixaLooksCarsick



Series: Shumako Week 2k19 [3]
Category: Megami Tensei, Persona 5, Shin Megami Tensei, persona - Fandom
Genre: AU, Alternate Continuity, Bleak, Distance, Dystopia, Experimental, F/M, star crossed lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 07:05:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17442206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlixaLooksCarsick/pseuds/BlixaLooksCarsick
Summary: Day Three: DistanceIn another world, the ghost of a strong bond draws two people together, through pain and torment.





	Day Three: From Shadow...

**Author's Note:**

> This AU narrative will encompass Days Three and Four, respectively.  
> Starting off this time with the theme of Distance.

Somewhere, somewhen in the fabric of infinity – a thing both glorious and grotesque – a tear came to be. Why and how make up a story of magnificent proportions, riddled with triumph, demise, broken promises and fallen heroes. But such story does not really matter; only its consequences do. You may have felt it yourself, the tear occurring: a sensation like a flicker in your senses, too real to be ignored, but you could not quite place just what happened. At the end, it passed as quickly as it came; you thought little of it come the next day. Life goes on in peace.

Elsewhere, elsewhen in the fabric of infinity, the pebble caused ripples, from which another world was born. This world is very similar to yours and mine, but a very particular set of differences make life in this new Earth an unrecognisable phenomenon. Extract one war from history, delay or hasten another. Displace the epicentre of promethean discoveries and scientific advances. And in the resulting sum, you will find new beliefs, new practices, and new prejudices. A new world entirely for human kind. 

But most people in our world have no equivalent counterpart in this other. The alternate flux of history meant many who would be our furthest ancestors never met, others never born, and others snuffed out of existence before their time - by intent or chance. It can be a haunting thought to consider an Earth in which the people you take for granted in your everyday life, those you hold dear, and even yourself never came to be. This, of course, includes the grand personages, the geniuses and inspired ones, the great authors and leaders. In logical terms, different should not necessarily mean worse; nevertheless, life is a bleak matter for a great many. 

And yet, the real tragedy falls on those rare ones who exist in the other Earth as they do in the world we know. No matter their way in life, they will forever feel an invisible, intangible bond with their counterparts in our Earth. They will always crave for connections they are only instinctively aware of, and finding them impossible to recreate, they will suffer from the lack of it. In several societies, these ‘afflicted ones’ are considered to suffer from a very particular kind of madness, and they become branded by prejudice and hatred.

This is the story of one such individual: a 22-year old woman named Makoto Niijima. In our world, she is the mighty Queen of the Phantom Thieves. But in this waste land of an Earth, she is the Child of Strife. 

After the World War, triggered by the assassination of a King, a Kaiser and a Tsar, Japan became a nation chained to the Empire across the Pacific. Every citizen, from the moment they were born, was subjected to the whim of the popularly-called ‘Orange Overlord’. Every child grew with submission under their tongue, and their upbringing was carefully guided to generate a lawful citizen when they came of age. Any suspicion of ‘unlawfulness’ was merciless quelled so as not incur in the Overlord’s anger lest he execute what he called the ‘final solution’. Though Japan was always a militarised nation, these stern measures were relatively new. 

In the eyes of many, there was one man responsible for this new way of life: Masayoshi Shido, leader of the resistance against the Empire across the Pacific. He was eventually found in Okinawa, where he was given shelter, soon arrested and executed, but new oppressive laws were instituted after this affair, and a new racial hatred spawned against all Okinawa-natives. A land of cowards and traitors, it was said. All familial or political links to Okinawa were punished and severed. 

And it just so happened that General Akihiko Niijima had secretly aided this resistance. But his fate was different from Shido’s, for the Niijima name carried a weight borne out of tradition. No matter the age, whether at war or at a frail peace, there was always a Niijima in office. Rather than being executed, he was exiled along with his wife, leaving one daughter, Captain Sae Niijima, to fill the gap in the unspoken order of things. It needed not be said that Sae would be yoked to her duties for life in order to atone for her father’s ‘treasonous leaning’. 

Therefore, Sae had to leave her little sister under the care of the state. From the moment of their farewell, Sae knew she might never see Makoto again in her life. In their final embrace, Sae thought she would be forgiven for bearing great anger towards her father, but it was not him she was angry at, and it was not mere anger what constricted her heart – it was hate, towards the world that subjected her family like this. But she would carry its weight without protesting, for Makoto’s sake.

Makoto was four years old when the streets became her parents. To the other kids, she was a quiet, awkward girl, but normal regardless. The first signs of ‘madness’ began to manifest a few weeks before turning eighteen. The first sign was in how she stared at the walls and doors of the lower reaches in the city. Usually diligent to a fault, she suddenly started to delay at work, and her attention began to falter in her classes. The rumours began to coil around her in hushed whispers. 

But it was the easiest thing to witness the avalanche of ridicule and shunning about to fall on her head. From her perspective, the overwhelming sensation of longing was much worse than anything her peers or superiors could throw at her. She knew what happiness was – she had known it when she was four years old, when her family was whole. After the forced disintegration of her family, she never knew happiness again, but did not actually know sorrow either. Now, for the first time, she experienced it.

They would never know it, but it took monumental inner strength to keep her feelings contained to appear as mere distractedness. Within, the sudden feeling of lack had her search in the surface of walls for a shadow that kept eluding her. She felt as though her own mind were playing her a prank when the shadow was joined by six others, never more and never fewer than that.

Makoto was alone one day on her way to her room at a building in one of the lower reaches. She deliberately searched for a dead end, somewhere with no ears to catch her words. By now, the sound of her own voice was alien to herself; she cared little for communicating with any of her peers, especially these days. But she felt ever the more compelled to rationalise what her eyes showed her.

Any secluded, deserted spot would do. The seven shadows accompanied her everywhere.

“H-hello.” The sound came out barely above a murmur. Makoto turned around discreetly to make sure she was alone. “Hello.” She repeated, a little more secure.

The shadows appeared to be frozen all over the wall in front of her, seated here and there in disorderly manner. All were seated, except for one. Only a shadow, but it vaguely seemed as if it was looking at her – no, as if it was seeing her.

“Who are you?” Makoto asked, to no response. “Who are you?” Again, louder.

The first time lasted hardly a minute. The next tried were longer, but never too long so as to keep discreet. But every time, she retired to her room, dragging along this sudden uninvited weight, and every time closer to tears. 

[ ]

It was delivery day. Throughout these fourteen years, the only contact she has had with her sister was through a package delivered periodically. It always contained food, and the closest thing she could send as means of a gift. On rare few occasions, there was a typed letter from Sae, letting her know she was safe and that she loved her. Makoto always cried when she got them, for the love her sister still bore her, for having no means to write back, and for having to burn the letter afterwards every time.

Regardless of what the package contained, it was always brought by a courier with covered features. It was not the same courier every time, and even though they never spoke to her, she had ways to tell each apart. This time, it was the courier she liked. Tall and lean, one eye looking slightly different to the other – as if it were made of glass. He first started delivering Sae’s packages when she was six years old. He stood out from the others for his habit of eating his lunch while he waited for Makoto to arrive; and when she did arrive, he always shared some of his food with her. That habit prevailed across the years, and this time was no exception.

She never heard a word from any of the couriers. But somehow this one was the quietest of them all.

“Thank you.” She said when he served half of his spiced potato on a napkin for her. 

She ate in silence as she always did, but after a minute she noticed how the courier looked at her with curiosity. Makoto tried to feign ignorance, but she was well aware that her peers and superiors strayed further away, as if her efforts to keep her composure proved less effective each time. Would he also?

“I’m fine.” She said, meaning to say something else entirely, something efficient and sound to stave off the suspicions. 

With a certain nonchalance, the courier returned to his half potato, as if the uncomfortable moment were of no importance.

Unbeknownst to her, this would be the calmest day in her life before it all came tumbling down.

[ ]

Strangely, it seemed as if the more she tried to hide the effects of what she experienced, the more evident they became. A superior reached out to her in time. He looked concerned, and he was very patient when asking Makoto if something was wrong. By this time, the young woman had lost count of the days since she first saw the shadows; she did not know how much longer could she go on like this. So she spoke truly. It did not help in itself, but it was a minor comfort to know somebody cared. 

That feeling did not last. She never knew if the superior had indeed passed the information on to anyone else, but the teasing, the bullying, and downright abuse from her peers went unpunished since that day. The day after she confessed her trouble was the first time she heard the word, now yoked to her name in school and work.

Loon. After it was first spoken, somebody wrote it in big black letters on the walls of her room.

Things got progressively worse since. The word became a vise around her head, callously tightening a little more each day. Makoto, vulnerable from the anxiety and depression that made every day barely endurable, looked in the eyes of her peers for compassion, but she found only a desire to harm. And even then, amidst the uniformed youths and superiors, her eyes easily found the seven shadows, each calling out to her somehow. The first shadow was right in front of her, seeing her past the abuse flung her way. It was then than she discarded all willingness to hide it.

“Help me…” She said, as she went down on her knees, hands clutching her head. “Please…” She sobbed. “Help me.”

The shadow was closer, reaching out to her, seeking her impossible reciprocation. 

Makoto Niijima disappeared the day after. She renounced her room, and from her own perspective, her sanity as well. Until that moment, the road to her life was a rigid frame: studying and working towards a position in the army, to server next to her sister, and live one day at a time. That was the only objective she could think of since Sae was the only one who cared about her.

But was she indeed?

With every moment that passed, it seemed to Makoto as if the shadows that roamed her diseased mind cared about her as well – they certainly cared more than her actual peers, many of which she grew up with. Even the courier with the glassy eye held her in better regard, even when the signs of her madness looked obvious. 

It was a cold, misty night which found her out in the ravaged, urban lower reaches, crying under a full moon over the family she lost, and the future that looked all but lost now. The shadows did not abandon her in this cold spot. She welcomed their presence, even if they heralded the unbearable yearning she still felt. If loving the cause of her distress was not a sign of insanity, what indeed could be?

But the greatest insanity of them all was the idea that came at the end of a string of bitter thoughts. Impossible as it may be, she would get her family back, she would make peace with the sorrow the shadows brought into her mind. And she would have her vengeance against the world.

And so, Makoto Niijima took her first steps on the path of strife.

The planned course was hardly changed in itself. She needed to attain a position of dominance, and in order to do so, she needed fortitude and knowledge. The former would come to her in time, so long as she stayed faithful to her goal and never surrendered. But the latter involved a more concrete approach. She needed studying materials, to which she had no access anymore since abandoning her classes, but what good were those pamphlets to her? Even before the first inkling of madness, she knew these materials outlived their use so long ago. She required advanced materials that were out of her reach – that is, if she cared to be the idle kind of ‘loon’. 

Her first attempt at breaking and entering the sanctioned library ended in utter failure, getting caught immediately after breaking the window to get access. For the crime of vandalism, she faced incarceration for no less than one year. However, she reaped the dubious benefit of being easily recognised by the guards. Rather than being locked up, she was let go with a warning, or at least that was the way they spun the tale on paper. 

Makoto was free to walk away from the charge, but not before they pinned her to the ground and shaved her head to the scalp. She may never comprehend the reasoning behind this type of punishment. At that moment, with the grime and the dirt against her cheek, it felt only like cruelty. Their laughter echoed across the alleyways, and it seemed to the girl as if the reaches, and the world were all laughing along, laughing at her. 

Just how much of this world was cause and consequence, and just how much was simple cruelty? The guards said something to her at the end of it: they said she should feel lucky she did not end up maimed or raped. Those words gave her some food for thought on the matter; that would be for much later, same as feeling her naked head with her hands for the first time. For now, and for the hours to come, all in her mind was the strange position of the shadow in her eyes. It seemed as if he was reaching out to her, as if it wanted to help her.

And she wished it could, from the bottom of her heart. 

This would be an early one of many times she wished the shadow was at her side, as a person. It seemed to know her about as much as Sae, if not maybe more. And to Makoto, it felt as if she herself was supposed to know it too. Every day, the sensation grew stronger, the ghost of a connection. Every day, she strayed further and further from whatever actual people she saw every day. After the courier she liked stopped showing up, she figured she may as well be alone forever.

He never said a word to her. Still, it hurt.

Henceforth, Makoto Niijima began to learn from her mistakes, honing her skills on her own, educating herself, surviving by her fists alone. Her hair grew back eventually, but the memory of the cruel deed remained. It fed her resolve, and taught her to see other foul deeds unseen to others. She vowed to right all those wrongs – and if such a thing was insanity, then so be it.

All who witnessed her bloody stride came to know her as the Child of Strife. Her exterior radiated a strength and fortitude, matched by intelligence and valour. But within, she chided herself every hour for loving a shadow. 

For there was no denying it anymore. Somehow, she knew the person who owned that shadow. They are somebody important, so important to her. And if her eyes were not fooling her worse than she already thought, she was important to it as well.

It might have started as a whim, but it eventually became a commitment, and a necessity. This world felt so hollow, so unreal to her, but the shadows none but her could see – her companions throughout inexplicable sorrow – felt ever more real. 

She was mad: what had she to lose? 

Makoto Niijima would find whomever owned the shadow.

**Author's Note:**

> To be continued, and mended.


End file.
